Like Dreams
by ArmedWithAPen
Summary: Tooth's always been fond of North's annual Christmas gatherings, but when the evening becomes a little too jolly even for her taste, a certain winter spirit whisks her away into the skies for an adventure that proves just how warm a December night with Jack Frost can be. Jack/Tooth; FrostBite; Rainbow Snowcone; FairyFrost
1. Chapter 1: Finding I Can Fly

_A/N: Oh, my gosh, you guys are incredible. "Cold Outside" has become one of my most successful fics, and I am ecstatic. You all have made it impossible for me to keep away, so if you ever get tired of frequent updates and new stories, like, every three days, you only have yourselves to blame. ^^ Cover art by ScriptorSapiens. Own nothing! _

**Chapter One: Finding I Can Fly**

_I'm holding very tight.  
I'm riding on the midnight blue.  
I'm finding I can fly  
So high above with you. _

_– "Walking In The Air" Howard Blake_

Once again, she found herself on the stone balcony outside North's impressive main hall. Like every year. She should stop being so surprised. She was shivering in the snow, her nose cold and wet, her feathers ruffled painfully with the constant wind, but she didn't want to go back inside. She couldn't. She needed the air.

You'd think that of all the legends and immortals Manny had brought into existence, the bubbly, giddy, sunny, chatty Tooth Fairy would be the life of a party. She'd relish in it. She'd make herself the center of attention, what with her beautiful feathers, her charming personality, her wit and her easy laughter. Her wings would carry her across the sea of guests as she bounced from group to group, catching up with old friends and introducing herself to new ones. You'd think she'd love it.

You'd be wrong.

It wasn't that Tooth didn't enjoy a good party. That wasn't it at all. And North's parties were always spectacular. Beginning the day after Christmas and often lasting all six days until New Year's Eve, the annual bashes North threw for every Immortal who wanted to come were legendary fun. Everyone attended, even skeletal Father Time who usually spent the evenings sleeping off a bit too much brandy in an armchair next to the fireplace, his scythe held loosely in a limp fist. Even moody Mother Nature, who, despite however much she groused about frittering away her time at inconsequential events like these, never failed to enjoy herself. No, Tooth always enjoyed North's parties.

Sometimes, however, it was a little overwhelming.

Sometimes, in a crowd, it was difficult for Tooth to control her powers, you see. Being the Guardian of Memory and all that had its perks, but with the title came some unbelievably tricky small print. It was well known that when the Tooth Fairy and her miniature helpers gathered children's teeth, they simultaneously locked away the memories in the palace. When the teeth's owner needed those happy memories most, the fairies would deliver them.

What was less known about the Tooth Fairy was that, just as she had a telepathic connection to her mini-fairies, she was also connected to the teeth. For a split fraction of a second, each and every tooth she or her fairies touched shot their corresponding memory into Tooth's head. Flashes of lives that weren't her own—and honestly weren't hers to see—scattered her thoughts like feathers on a wind, and it was maddening. After a long while, she'd managed to control the images by concentrating, quite hard, on keeping them contained inside the teeth. That's when it was easy.

With people, however, it was more challenging. Living, breathing people, many of whose memories Tooth had logged and stored away, tugged at the memories in her mind a little more insistently. If teeth could be compared to a refrigerator magnet, their owners could be likened to an industrial size one. It was much more difficult to block the images projected from a living soul.

Again, with practice, Tooth had wrestled this into submission also. However, in a loud, bustling, laughing crowd, it was difficult to maintain concentration. The headaches would start, the feeling of burning pain in her mind, like someone had set fire to the inside of her head, and the pressure of the memories would force her out into the open, onto the empty balcony where no one could see her and she could see no one except the stars.

Inside, she could hear a rather intoxicated Bunnymund regaling the considerably less-drunk partygoers with tales of his Easter adventures that she must have heard another three times before. All different with each telling. She smiled to herself as North's booming laughter rose high above the others at one of his friend's jokes, spilling out into the crystal clear night through the French door she'd left slightly ajar.

It was a beautiful party. But she was glad she was outside. If only it wasn't so blasted cold!

"Chilly?"

Tooth yelped and almost leapt over the railing. _That infernal…! _

Putting on her best amused scowl, she whirled to the source of the disruption, who was currently beaming from ear to ear, having snuck, undetected, to her side.

"I just needed the air. What are you doing out here, Jack? Shouldn't you be inside, laughing at—oh, I mean _with_—Bunny like the others?"

"I was," Jack Frost chuckled, twirling his staff expertly in one hand before propping it up on the railing. "But then he started in on the Blizzard of '68 ordeal, and I didn't need to hear that one again."

"Oh, I don't know." Tooth shared a secret grin with the youngest Guardian, and whispered conspiratorially, "It might be a version you've never heard before. With elephants. Or flying couches."

Jack stared at her for a minute, wide-eyed as though confronting the most disappointing news of his immortal life. "Oh, no! And here I was hoping that story about the Great Easter Fiasco of '44 was all true!"

"The one with the octopus?"

"Sheep."

"Oh, you heard the good one! The sheep version is much more entertaining than the octopus one."

Jack spelled disaster for both of them by biting his lip, trying to restrain a grin that proved contagious. Instantly, as if his motion pulled an unseen trigger, both Guardians burst into laughter, ringing loud and clear over the Arctic plains, and they didn't stop laughing for what might have been years. Vaguely, Tooth realized that none of what either of them had said had been especially funny. Maybe it was the situation. A sloshed and rosy Bunnymund was undoubtedly something Jack had never seen before, and he was most likely still stunned at the farcical nature of the image.

He hadn't pressed her for reasons why she'd abandoned the party, and she liked that about Jack. Perhaps he didn't care. Perhaps he did, and just decided not to ask. Perhaps he was waiting until she was in a better mood before launching the attack. Whatever the reasons, Tooth appreciated it, more than she probably should have.

Recovering first, she allowed her remaining giggles to periodically burst from her throat like bubbles, and watched her companion slowly join her. He wasn't looking at her. He was clutching his staff for support, a hand on his ribs, and only the top of his head was visible as he gasped for air. Snowflake chuckles tumbled from his lips to the tile, and Tooth suddenly found she couldn't stop smiling. Each of his laughs made something inside her chest jump as though electrified, and her stomach had wings, and a clear, golden liquid bubbled up in her heart and, uncontained, forced its way out through a stupid, giddy smile.

He was beautiful. From the wayward tuft of the Moon-kissed hair adorning his head to the tips of his bare, white toes, he was beautiful. Toothiana had never met a more beautiful person in her entire immortal life.

And, if she was totally honest with herself, it frightened her.

As though feeling her gaze on him like a physical pressure, Jack's eyes rose, met hers, and— noting her blatant stare—glimmered that secret glimmer that had haunted her dreams since the first time she saw him. She had always found his eyes fascinating, as clear and blue as a December sky_, _and able to speak volumes with barely a glance. His eyes alone would take anyone's breath away, but when paired with a few scattered freckles across a nose that wrinkled when he was angry, and a lopsided grin that made her fairies squeal with an undiscovered frequency, and his _dazzling white teeth…_

Which he bared now. Since she was still staring. Dazedly.

It was then that the Queen of the Fairies experienced something that hadn't happened to her in almost a thousand years.

Her face warmed spectacularly, alarmingly, with all the speed of a flying fairy, and she blushed—_blushed—_a magnificent scarlet that could've rivaled North's coat in color. Tooth was stunned. Blushing was such a _human _thing to do. She hadn't been human for almost…well, too long anyway. She'd almost begun to believe she'd lost the ability.

And not only did she blush, oh no! It got worse. She actually turned her eyes away, ripping them from his as though physically burned, and suddenly found a snowflake on the stone railing the most interesting thing she'd ever seen. She was acting shy. _She! The Tooth Fairy! A Queen! The Guardian of Memories! _Shy because a young winter sprite, a human boy hundreds of years her junior, smiled at her.

She cleared her throat and shifted under his gaze that could have bored holes through her shoulder. Her wings fluttered nervously, and she desperately searched for a topic of conversation that she could latch onto, that she could babble on and on about until he left, until he stopped staring at her with his crystal blue eyes, amused yet bemused by her constant stream of chatter. This silence was uncomfortable, and yet not uncomfortable. Out of her peripheral vision, she could tell he was still smiling, slow, deliberate, and slightly bashful. Talking was her rescue. It filled the silence. Took up the empty spaces in conversation that weren't really that empty at all.

But for only the second time in her life, Tooth was at a loss for words. The first time had been when she'd hugged him.

Ironically, it was the wind that saved her. With a terrific howl, a gust of arctic air swept down the mountain housing North's Workshop, bringing with it a few stinging pellets of ice and snow that made her shiver, her teeth chattering, and brought her arms involuntarily around her middle. Feathers only kept her so warm for so long, and now she found that she was freezing. How long had she been standing out here? Her nose was numb, and so were her fingers.

"Oh, I don't like the cold," she hissed suddenly, violently, spontaneously, as she breathed on her clasped hands in vain attempts to warm them. "I don't like it at all. Snow? Yes. Ice? Sure. Wind, even, I'm okay with, but cold?"

A beat of silence in which she stood, shivering, before she realized how desperately she shouldn't have said that.

"What's wrong with cold?"

Everything inside of Tooth froze to a block of ice at Jack Frost's voice. _Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Brilliant, Toothiana, complain about cold to a winter spirit. Whom you may or may not have feelings for. You're a genius. _

Jack didn't look angry when her eyes snapped to his, stunned and horrified at the words that had just left her mouth. He leaned against his staff, his head cocked to the side like a curious bird, his lips twitching up at the corners into what might have been a slightly-amused smile, but she was too afraid to look closer. It might have also been a grimace of pain.

Tooth scrambled to rectify the situation. "Oh! Oh, Jack, no! Nothing's wrong with cold! That's not what I meant at all, I-I was j-just…you see, I live in the rainforest, yes? Well, it's _never _cold in the rainforest! Everything's humid and warm and beautiful and there's flowers and trees and frogs and water everywhere, and I guess I'm not used to the cold. I've never had to be used to it. I complain less than Bunny does, but only because I'm the Tooth Fairy, I'm not supposed to complain. Also, the _snow! _Oh, yes, the snow is beautiful, I adore snow. Well, I guess not when there's too much snow. Because then it gets a little annoying, all that snow, and it's hard to walk through and it makes my wings and my fairies' wings freeze a little on the edges, and it's extremely hard to fly."

Babbling. Babbling like a moron. She wanted to stop, honestly she did, but she found she simply couldn't. Her brain had disconnected from her mouth, and it was now spewing forth an uncontrollable mass of words and thoughts that had nothing to do with each other, and she could cry from what she'd said about not liking cold earlier, she hadn't meant it! Anything Jack did was perfect, beautiful, and if cold was Jack, then she adored cold. Truly.

Slowly and steadily widening with every sentence she uttered, the subtle twitch at the corner of his lips had broadened again into that spectacular grin. A fist clenched and unclenched gently around the knot on the curve of his staff, and somehow the fingers must have been attached invisibly to her heart because every move they made tugged the muscle into silly, irregular, somersault beats that weakened her knees and forced her to look everywhere again except his eyes.

"I suppose I _do _like the cold, Jack! I do! I love the cold! But only on winter _days, _not winter nights. Winter nights are so lonely and dark, and if it's cloudy sometimes even the stars don't show, and then nothing keeps my fairies company while they collect teeth, oh, Jack, it's awful. Sunshine melts the frost that gathers on their feathers, but since we don't collect teeth during the day, they have to make their trips especially short so they don't freeze at night! No, Jack, I think winter nights, like _this _one even, winter nights are never any—"

Her heart stopped beating, and suddenly, she lost the ability to breathe. Faster than the blink of an eye, Jack Frost had crossed the five feet between them in one stride, placed a finger to her lips, and spared her the most mischievous, marvelous, wonderous smile she'd ever seen.

"You'd be surprised, princess," he whispered as though letting slip the grandest secret of the universe, "at how beautiful a winter night can be."

She could have been carved from stone. A stray breath would have knocked her over. As such, all she could do when Jack finally removed his finger was stand there, staring, mouth slightly agape, and try to remember her name. _Toothiana, right? Her name was Tooth. The Tooth Fairy. Right, Queen of the—_

"In fact!" His face lighting like a thousand-watt Christmas tree, Jack suddenly sprang to the railing, balancing perfectly on one bare foot, and peering over the edge with the most reckless grin on his face. Tooth's stomach leapt into her throat. Her previously paralyzed body finally decided to kick into action, and she lunged forward to snatch the teenager from certain doom. He could fall! He could kill himself! Well, then again, they were immortal, but still! He could—

Paralysis relapsed when a white hand suddenly appeared in front of her nose, stretched, extended, all five fingers upturned and welcoming her own. Blinking owlishly, once more stunned speechless, Tooth helplessly traced her gaze upwards, finally landing in the region of Jack's face. Again, it felt like someone had punched her square in the chest. His eyes sparkled, his cheeks were flushed a pale blue, and his hair stirred lightly in a winter breeze only he could feel.

"I'll show you," he said.

_Oh, his voice!_ His palm opened wider, wide enough to swallow her miniscule hand easily. Her stare shot from it to his eyes, and back again. He grinned.

"Come with me."

Suddenly, those three words spoken in Jack Frost's voice became the most beautiful sounds she had ever heard. How could she resist?

Valiantly, apparently. Her heart screaming _yes! _with all the power it held was still slightly outgunned by the Tooth Fairy's head, a much less rusty organ, well-oiled with hundreds of years of use. She glanced back once through the glass at North's party, and swallowed. Bunny had almost finished his story. She could hear the last carefully practiced lines winding down, and the guests' laughter was fading.

With a single glance, Jack read her thoughts. "They won't miss us," he assured her.

She knew they would, later, when everyone was retiring to their rooms for the evening and North managed to shake himself from his vodka-induced stupor long enough to realize two Guardians were missing. But she looked back into Jack's eyes and knew her answer immediately. For once in her life, she would take a page out of his book. She would forget the world. For one sparkling moment, she would forget the world and everything in it and place her heart in Jack Frost's care.

Gingerly, she laid a small pink hand in his. "Where are we going?"

He enclosed her fingers tightly, firmly, inciting a shiver up her spine that had nothing to do with his frosty skin.

"Wherever the wind takes us," he said softly, and without another word, before she had time to reconsider, he tugged her into the air.

_A/N: Just to clarify, I wrote this as unrelated to "Cold Outside." But maybe it could be seen as a sort-of prequel? Up to you. More to follow! For the first time, I find myself finishing chapter fics even before I post them. 8( Weird. _


	2. Chapter 2: Walking In The Air

_A/N: Woot woot! Another chapter. A big thank you to my anonymous reviewers from Chappie One, you guys rock. ^^ And everyone who's followed/faved. Love you all! _

**Chapter Two: Walking In The Air**

_We're walking in the air.  
__We're floating in the moonlit sky.  
__The people far below  
__Are sleeping as we fly._

_- "Walking in the Air" Howard Blake_

Tooth wasn't a vain creature. She didn't pride herself on her beauty, intelligence, wit, or charm, despite being repeatedly told by multiple Legendaries on numerous occasions that she possessed all the above qualities in abundance. When such compliments arose, she would smile, express her thanks most sincerely and humbly, and tactfully switch the topic of conversation. In fact, she found herself not quite believing them. Truthfully, she was rather embarrassed by her vividly avian appearance, all bright and showy with barely any of her father's human features, and she might have given anything to be just a little less bubbly and talkative. She wouldn't consider herself quite self-conscious, but she definitely wouldn't say she was proud.

Except for one small ability.

Flight.

More than anything, the Tooth Fairy loved to fly. It had been the best part of her nightly rounds in the field some 440 years ago, apart from seeing the children of course, and since picking up personally collecting again, Tooth found it was better than she remembered. She loved it! The feeling of the wind ripping through her feathers was like the caress of an old friend, and the rush of soaring through the sky was unparalleled. She'd been cooped up in her Palace for so long that she'd almost forgotten. Her wings felt used again, humming with life and energy, and _oh! _how could she ever have given it up in the first place?

She prided herself on the ability to take off into the air without assistance, without North's sleigh, without Sandy's golden cloud, and she could outstrip any being with wings or without. She was queen of the air. She wasn't afraid to fly. Needless to say, Tooth and flight went together hand in hand.

All these thoughts and more flew through her head in the split second between Jack tugging her gently into the sky and the madness that happened next.

You see, the Tooth Fairy, in all her reassurances, had forgotten one very important detail. Jack Frost didn't fly. He rocketed. Shot. Pelted through the night like an out of control snowflake, carried on violent gusts of the Northern Wind that had become his friend and companion through all 300 years of his existence, a Wind which—much to its frosty delight—didn't recognize Jack's new friend, and decided to have a little bit of fun.

With a mischievous whistle as her only warning, Tooth barely found time to breathe before she was swept terrifically ungracefully into a violent swell, a blistering wind that buffeted her feathers and almost bent her backwards, and she was in emptiness, cold emptiness, and she'd left her stomach behind. Eyes streaming with tears at the sharp sting of the rushing air, Tooth tumbled through the night, head over heels, the world spinning in her vision like a top, up down leftrightupsidedownrightside up—

Instinctively, her wings kicked into high gear, humming at warp speed in vain attempts to right their mistress, and only causing her to spiral further out of control on the crest of the wind.

"Don't fight it, Tooth! Let it carry you. Fly!"

Jack's voice sounded incredibly far away over the howling. Vaguely, she realized the boy's hand had changed positions, moving from a tremulous hold on her fingers to a vice-like grip on her wrist. It was a wonder in itself that her arm hadn't twisted out of socket. And with another infuriating blush, she realized that she probably looked a mess.

Humiliated and impossibly ruffled, she screeched, _"This isn't flying, Jack Frost! This is being tossed!" _

Definite laughter. "Relax, Tooth! Just relax. I've got you, I promise. I won't let go."

Easy for him to say. He'd had years to master this ridiculous impromptu sport of wind-riding, and he'd never flown with wings before, he didn't know how calm it was, how utterly soothing and beautiful and _in control _it was—

Concentrating intently, fighting every instinct that screamed for flight inside her head, Tooth grit her teeth and folded her wings tightly into her back. To her immediate surprise, there was instantly less pull, less helpless flailing. The streamlined shape of her body turned her into an arrow that the wind shot past smoothly and efficiently, only managing to ruffle a few feathers.

"That's it, that's it. Good job, princess, you got it! Now, just tilt a little bit upwards, towards the sky, and angle your arm a little…"

But Tooth was a fast learner. Or rather, the North Wind was feeling particularly forgiving tonight. She could feel it now, feel the whisper of the air, the power of the wind, feel it speaking to her in ways she'd never heard before, and she could feel her muscles automatically adjusting, tensing and relaxing in all the right places, and before she knew it, she was almost there, almost perfectly balanced…

"That's it, Tooth! That's it! Now, give me a sec, and I'll just adjust—"

Jack's remaining words were physically torn from her ear in less than a second. She'd fallen into the perfect position, her arms and legs and torso at precisely the right angle for optimum windspeed, and the North Wind was never one to pass up an opportunity. With a gust of air that sent even an unsuspecting Jack spiraling out over the Arctic snow, it shot the Tooth Fairy straight up in a spectacular updraft like a cap from a popgun. And Tooth was helpless in its wake.

A lesser being might have screamed its head off. Poor Tooth _felt _like screaming her head off. But she was fairly certain that at this speed, opening her mouth was an impossibility, and a scream would have been ripped from her throat before even forming. So instead, she concentrated on every image of Jack in flight that she'd studied—blushed again when she realized just how many images of Jack she'd committed to memory—and focused on the angles of his body. How they changed with his flight patterns. Every minute curve and bend that served a purpose, angled the wind…

She was suddenly aware of something cold and wet soaking her face and feathers, and she realized, stunned, that she hadn't opened her eyes once since being swept off the Pole's stone balcony. Clouds. She must be passing through clouds.

_I wonder if the wind will blow me into space. _

She quickly erased the thought before it could conjure any unpleasant images, and focused on concentrating. Carefully adjusting first one limb and then the other, she felt the wind's force on her body begin decreasing. It seemed when she angled her body just so, the pressure on her back softened. Delicately, she twisted, extended a hand, and then, before she had a chance to think twice, she balled her fists and threw herself bodily from the updraft.

Silence.

Stillness.

For the first time in what seemed like ages, the roaring of the wind ceased. She hovered, every muscle tensed and curled into a ball of feathers, her wings working furiously as though making up for lost flying time, before she finally opened one wide eye.

She couldn't help it. When her brain finally managed to catch up with a body that had been speeding through the troposphere, it could do nothing but stare, dumbfounded, at the sights before its eyes.

Above her was nothing but black. Black, black as far as the eye could see, and yet dotted with so many bright, beautiful stars that it could have been daytime. They twinkled like diamonds in the darkness, so far away and at the same time so close that Tooth felt like she could stretch up and touch one if she wanted to. The moon was enormous, as big as the sky itself, white and silver and smiling, and she had to fight the irrational instinct to wave. Surely, Manny would be able to count her feathers from this distance. She could count the craters in his home's face.

Below, the clouds stretched to the horizon like a sea of chocolate ice cream, black and fluffy and magic with moonlight. Like a she had stumbled quite accidentally into a giant's garden. Her heart thundered in her chest, her eyes stinging from staring for so long.

It was beautiful. So incredibly beautiful that Tooth could hardly believe it. She must be dreaming.

"Nice, huh?"

This time, she did yelp. Whirling, she found herself face to face with Jack Frost himself, hovering with his arms outstretched in the North Wind's considerably gentler updraft. He wore a smile the size of North's belt on his lips, and his blue eyes sparkled with obvious pride. The wind plucked at his clothes and mussed his unruly hair, made him a white figure against the black sky, and between him and the scenery around her, Tooth was having difficulty deciding where to stare.

Blinking, she managed, "J-Jack, this…this is beautiful."

He didn't answer, but his mouth broadened into a pleased grin. He drifted closer, floating on air, and said, "Congratulations on your maiden voyage back there, princess. You're a natural."

She flushed—_again!—_and smoothed her head feathers. "It's not so hard when you get used to it."

"Still, for not being born with it, you're good." He smirked. "Almost as good as my first time."

She shot him a playful grin. "Oh, really? I'd like to think I was better. Considering it's not even my power."

"Glad to see you've recovered enough to argue with me." His smile was villainous. Honestly, how did he keep those teeth so _white?_ Her lips twitched upwards into an annoyingly shy smile, and she lowered her eyes to keep it hidden, absently smoothing some ruffled feathers on her wrists. They lapsed into a short companionable silence in which Tooth pondered her newfound ability. True, she'd taken to it well enough. But she still infinitely preferred using wings and her own volition to fly, rather than relying on the mercy of a considerably capricious wind. It was much easier. And less…exhilarating. Ever since that one Halloween when Bunny and North had locked her inside a supposedly haunted house for a prank—which resulted in a week-long stay in the Pole's hospital wing recovering from a near cardiac arrest—Tooth made conscious efforts to participate in activities that wouldn't overexcite her already rapid hummingbird heartbeat. Results could be disastrous.

Wind-riding definitely qualified as one of these off-limits activities. So did thinking about Jack Frost, come to think of it, but she couldn't really help that, could she?

"Oh, Tooth, look!" Apparently without thinking, said Spirit of Winter took Tooth's hand in his and held it tightly. His skin was cold, smooth, a few small callouses marking the places where his palm gripped his staff, but nevertheless it felt beautiful. So achingly beautiful. Was skin allowed to feel this beautiful?

Shaking herself, Tooth attempted to come back to Earth. _What did he say? What is he pointing at? _

She blinked a few times, trying to focus on the black night in front of her rather than the feeling of her fingers engulfed in his. It was proving alarmingly difficult. "I don't see anything, Jack."

"Sure you do. Right there. That big tall cloud."

She squinted as hard as she could and finally managed to see it. It looked like a spire of marshmallows, climbing into the air as though it was the tip top of a candy palace, but from so far away it seemed laughably miniscule. "What about it?"

With only a laugh as an answer, Jack winked at her, waved his staff, and shot them forward into the night. Her stomach swooped uncontrollably, and without even meaning to, she instinctively grabbed his arm, latching hold of it as if for dear life itself. She didn't try to focus too much on the implications this action might entail, and she was infinitely proud of her ability to restrain a shudder when he chuckled low in his chest and she could feel it through her forearm. She put all her energy into watching the cloud approach, looming and enormous like a grinning sentinel.

After a moment or two, Jack slowed them to a standstill. Tooth opened her eyes to find him smiling, and when she followed his gaze upwards she found they were floating in front of the giant cloud.

"Now, watch this," he said.

Without another word, he took off, leaving Tooth hovering at the base of the monster. Frowning, she crossed her arms and looked skyward. The cloud was simply huge, as tall as a mountain and bigger than the moon. Jack was a pale blue dot against it, topped with a shock of white hair. She could barely keep track of him as he swooped through the moisture, in and out, around and around, trailing bits of fog after him as he worked his way up the tower. Squinting, she tilted her head to the side. It was as though he was sculpting something, the way he was shaping the cloud. What was he—

He had only just finished when she saw it finally, and without further ado, she burst into the loudest and longest round of giggles she had experienced in a while.

He grinned happily, returning to her side and admiring his own handiwork. "You like it?"

A perfect enormous replica of Bunnymund, drunk and balancing precariously on one foot, stood before her, complete with a misty flask of eggnog clutched in one fist.

"It's wonderful!" she wheezed. "How did you—"

"When I wasn't spreading fun across the globe, I did this," he said smugly, buffing his fingernails on his sweatshirt. "Well, this and trying to bust in the Pole. I figured I'd give Phil a break, though, and so _ta-da! _I call it cloud-sculpting. I'm a master."

"That you are." Tooth grinned and hovered higher into the air to admire the minute details in cloud-Bunny's expression. She chuckled. His eyes were crossed. "It's perfect!"

"Now you try."

She blinked. "What?"

Jack leaned his staff across his shoulders like a yoke, his hands draped casually over the sides, and smiled. "You try. It's easy!"

Tooth cocked one feathered eyebrow, glancing from the winter spirit to the cloud sculpture and back again.

"Really! C'mon, I'll teach you."

A few minutes later, Tooth's first cloud sculpture revealed itself—a very lopsided North. Jack laughed off her indignant huffs, and proclaimed that he almost preferred her rather pathetic art piece over the original. As much as she appreciated his jokes, her next sculpture was less challenging. Smiling, she presented him with a tall, perfectly whipped ice cream cone, complete with a spiral at the point.

"Impressive," he grinned, thumbing the sculpture like a pro. "Almost symmetrical, a little cirrus with the cumulus, I see. Rebellious."

"I'm avant-garde," she answered with her best snobbish sniff and a secret smile. She much preferred it this way. A witty repartee rather than being simply stunned by every move this boy made. It was safer. Distant. She could remind herself that they were Guardians. Their job was to protect the children. They didn't have time for…_feelings_.

"How many can you 'avant-garde' in five minutes?" he smirked.

Reading the challenge in his voice, she answered his question with a wicked grin, speeding off into the night and calling over her shoulder, "More than you!"

His answering laugh was heart-stopping.

Together, like a ballet in the sky, they swooped in perfect synchronization, in and out of the clouds, around and over the stars, sweeping ribbons of moisture and trails of ice in their wakes. They could have been underwater. They could have been in outer space. Their eyes locked once in a graceful downward spiral in which Jack cast her a boyish, beautiful smile so handsome that it should have been outlawed. No one was allowed to have such a handsome smile.

What might have been an eternity later, they stopped, gasping and panting and laughing like hooligans, admiring their work. The clouds were smooth and round, perfectly shaped and twirled expertly, and the wind whipped at the topmost peaks of the ice cream cones, turning them into sheets of moisture on the air.

Tooth could only smile giddily, eyes wide and drinking in the scene with every heartbeat, and silently thank the stars that she had put her hand in Jack's.

She felt the chill radiating off his fingers before she felt his actual flesh. Gently, almost hesitatingly, he ghosted his palm across the back of her hand, making all sorts of prickling feelings shoot like static through her arm, and her eyes snapped to his, her face slack jawed and stunned.

He had taken her hand. _Again. _For the second time that night.

And his eyes were so low, so warm and deep and swallowing, that she couldn't have looked away if she wanted to. Something else burned inside, something sparkling like mischief and yet not, and she was a little afraid to know what it was.

"Wanna see something else?" he asked softly.

Was she mistaking the blush on his cheeks? Slowly, her muscles having issues responding to her brain's demands, she nodded.

Jack Frost gave a dazzling smile, and she could have counted the stars reflected in his eyes. He waved his staff—_this _time, she braced herself—and the wind swirled around them, catching his clothes as though they were on fire, ruffling every one of her feathers, and plunged them back below the cloud line.

_A/N: Poor Tooth. She doesn't stand a chance. XD I blame it on the teeth. What girl can resist those teeth? Well, and the rest of him, I suppose. :) Reviews = love! _


	3. Chapter 3: Like Dreams

_A/N: Many thanks to followers/favoriters and my reviewers both with accounts and without, and a very special shout out to SilverEyeShinobi who helped me out with my lack of Vancouver-knowledge. ^^ You rock! Jack Frost 1979 belongs to Rankin/Bass, I think...as usual, own nothing! :D _

**Chapter Three: Like Dreams**

_On across the world,  
The villages go by like dreams,  
The rivers and the hills,  
The forests and the streams._

_- "Walking in the Air" Howard Blake_

Even with the feathers, the hyperactive metabolism, and the wings that made sitting on anything except a backless chair extremely uncomfortable, being half-bird did have its advantages. Almost like a homing pigeon, Tooth's brain was hardwired to the Earth's magnetic field. A tug here, a pull there, and she knew precisely where on the globe she was at all times. A handy ability by any standards, especially considering her line of work.

So it was understandable that—when she emerged from the cloud line with her hand clasped tightly in the Spirit of Winter's—she felt an undeniable sense of confusion when she recognized none of the area below.

From the air, the Pole was a single glittering star in a sea of black. During the winter months, when the Arctic tilted furthest away from the sun and days were short if not practically nonexistent, lights from North's workshop burned like beacons stuffed haphazardly but welcomingly into the side of the sheer cliff face. On cloudy nights when even the Moon hid its face, the workshop was the only point of light for miles. She couldn't begin to count how many times she'd flown straight into the veritable frozen wasteland which North had chosen to call home, leaving behind her own beautiful, misty rainforest, and counted the seconds shivering in the cold until she saw them, the lights, glimmering in the distance like friendly candles.

This absence of light, with only a few scattered windows that marked the workshop, was what Tooth had expected to see when she and Jack descended from the clouds. So she was shocked, dazed, and left reeling by what definitely was NOT the North Pole.

In every direction below, there were lights. Orange lights, blue lights, street lights and head lights. Main roadways brimmed with cars making their way across town, skyscrapers shot up into the stars like the interloping clouds she and her companion had carved into ice cream not five minutes ago, and everything shone with a dull yellow haze that only the city could conjure. They stabbed through the rest of the black landscape like pinpricks in the Earth's crust, exposing the very mantle to view, and they were _everywhere, _even glistening in the waterways that sliced through the city like ribbons of glass, multiple bridges making safe passage over them easy. She had never seen so much water and so many bridges in one city before. The air smelled like salt and seawater, and mountains loomed in the distance, resolutely and silently guarding the lights below.

Attempting with the faintest hint of nausea to readjust her internal compass, Tooth gaped at the city below. "Where are we?"

"Just a little place I know, nothing really. Vancouver, I think it's called."

She couldn't believe it. Vancouver? _Canada? _They must have flown farther than she'd thought! How long had they been up there in the sky, twirling away in the clouds like a pair of children and not the hundred-year-old Guardians Manny had assigned them to be? Wouldn't North be missing them? Or Sandy and Bunny? What if something had happened? What if they needed help?

As before, Jack felt her tense, and he smiled. "Relax, Tooth. Have I ever steered you wrong?"

"Don't you think we should head back, Jack? The others, they—"

"—are probably passed out by now." With a wave of his staff, Jack swooped them low over the tallest skyscraper in the city, nearly clipping the antenna at the top. He grinned at her, his teeth practically glowing in the lazy flashing red light. "Tooth, answer honestly. Were you having fun at that party?"

She wanted to say yes. Say yes with all her heart. Just to prove that he, the great Jack Frost, could indeed be wrong sometimes, and that would maybe wipe that infuriating grin off his face, would maybe stop her knees from shaking and her fingers from trembling in his.

"No," she admitted instead.

"Now, look where we are." He gestured around them grandly. They were flying so low now that they swam in the midst of the skyscrapers, which rose above them like towering trees or soaring columns of a great cathedral, the ceiling of which was invisible. Colors flickered everywhere, they were soaring through a sea of light, and not for the first time that night, Tooth was struck speechless. Certainly, her fairies had returned from their rounds these last 440 years, bursting with stories and spinning wondrous tales of how the human world had evolved around them. One moment there was a thing called a steam engine that was like a huge metal snake that ferried people to and from different destinations, and the next there were little boxes called radios and TVs that spat sound and moving pictures directly into the house through invisible waves and colored lights. Telepathically, in her mind, Tooth had visited these places and seen these new things already. But _oh! _it was so much different in person!

She caught a glimpse of their reflections as they passed line after line of glass office windows, and smiled. Her feathers glittered in the lights of the city, and her wings were folded contentedly like sheer pink plates across her back, not being used to fly for the first time in too long. It felt good, being led by the hand, being carried, being swept through the air with Jack Frost to lead the way…

_Jack Frost. _

She could tell he thought she wasn't looking, but for the briefest fraction of a second before the glass vanished from view and her reflection with it, she had seen it. Seen the expression on his face as he watched her watch the city. Half-lidded eyes, hair in beautiful disarray, white hand a startling juxtaposition against her colorful plumage, and most importantly a smile. _That _smile. The one she'd seen on his face after she'd hugged him for the first time. The lazy one, the content one, the one that seemed with one twitch of his lips to speak volumes that she was almost too afraid to read.

Almost. But, suddenly, not tonight.

Tonight was the day after Christmas. Tonight was for them and them alone. Tonight the Tooth Fairy was feeling bold for the first time in a long time, and tonight she would enjoy herself. She would enjoy herself with this whirlwind of a boy who'd spun suddenly into her life less than a year ago and who she suddenly couldn't imagine her life without. She would enjoy it while it lasted, even if it killed her.

She turned, caught him staring, and valiantly disguised a secret smile when he cleared his throat and quickly looked away, a light blue blush dusting his cheeks. Scarcely there. But noticeable on his white skin. Her heart rose. _Could it be…? _

"Thank you for taking me out tonight, Jack."

It was an innocent enough statement, she thought. So it took her a few moments to realize why the blush returned ten-fold to her companion's cheeks, he stammered out a soft, "O-Out wha-whaddya m-m-mean, Tooth?" and his hand twitched uncomfortably between her fingers as if he was seriously considering letting go.

When she realized what she said, how it had sounded, her heart stopped, her face bloomed into flame, and her mouth disengaged completely from her brain.

"Oh! Oh, Jack, _no! _Out? No! Of course, we're not 'out', I-I didn't mean that. I just meant, you know, a-all this! It's nice, really, it is! I love it! And you're right, that party was terribly boring, honestly, I wasn't having any fun at all. I'm so glad you found me. W-Well, that-that is to say that I would have been glad if B-Bunny had found me! Or Sandy! O-Or North, yes! B-But because it was you, I'm just glad that _you _found me, and n-now we're here, and I…I, uh…"

Babbling. Oh, she could have kicked herself. They flew in silence for a while, Jack looking everywhere except her face, which was probably a good thing considering how violently red it was. It clashed horribly with her feathers. She would have made an excellent Christmas ornament for North's tree. At this point, she'd almost rather be a Christmas ornament on North's tree.

His next words, spoken so softly that she could have sworn she'd imagined them, almost knocked her out of the sky.

"I'm glad, too."

Her lips retreated between her teeth, and she had to fight the urge to smile insanely, horridly, awfully, like a teenaged girl and not the Fairy Queen. The point of contact between their hands was electrified, sending every nerve in her body into overdrive, and messing deliciously with her heart rate, which skipped with every lazy circle his thumb traced across the skin between their fingers.

Swallowing, Tooth mustered the courage to find his eyes. When she did, she found them looking at her, only her, and sparkling, twinkling like a pair of stars. She couldn't help herself. With the grin of someone completely out of their wits, one that looked like a cross between a drunk Bunny and a sugar-high elf, Tooth melted. Vaguely, she realized how odd this was, considering the cause of such an action was a boy whose sole purpose in life was to freeze things solid. And yet…

He lowered his eyes, and grinned sheepishly, and she realized with only the smallest of starts that she liked Jack. She liked Jack a lot. She'd known it all along, from the start. But only just now was she admitting it to herself, owning it, and feeling it rush through her limbs like a dam had given way inside, filling her chest to the brim with what could only be hot chocolate and marshmallows.

"You know what I feel like doing tonight?" The question burst from her lips before she had a chance to even think about it. Her body was on autopilot, and she was just along for the ride. Somehow, though, she couldn't bring herself to mind. It felt…right. It felt perfect.

Jack smiled, pulling them from a lazy flying speed into a complete standstill. "What?"

Tooth allowed a beat or two to build suspense before grinning, and whispering in a conspiratorial fashion that echoed the one Jack had perfected: "I want to watch TV."

The Guardian of Fun tilted his head, sharing in her secret smile. "I know a place." Hesitating only a moment, he bit his lip, and gently but surely drew Tooth into his arms, pulling her shoulder snugly against his chest and wrapping the arm holding his staff around her waist. If her eyes flew open any wider, she was sure they'd pop out of her skull, and her heart couldn't beat any faster without exploding. What was he…?

"It's faster," he explained hurriedly, undoubtedly reading her expression as someone who he'd just traumatized beyond repair. As it was, the blush from before lingered still at the tips of his nose and ears, and only brightened when she looked at him curiously. "Th-Th-The wind. It's faster if we're closer together, and I can, erm…hold you l-like this."

He shifted his arm slightly, as though in vain attempts to give her more space. Tooth, however, didn't mind. She didn't mind in the slightest.

Instead of replying, not quite trusting her voice, she gave him the least-shy smile she could conjure, and nestled as best she could into his arm. He tensed at the touch, still watching her eyes warily for any sign of trouble, and finding none, his face broke into the most boyish, wonderful, thousand-watt grin she had ever seen. She couldn't help but giggle. _Giggle! Fairy Queens don't giggle! _and she asked quietly:

"Where to, Mr. Frost?"

Jack looked the happiest she had seen since knowing him, and he couldn't seem to look anywhere but her eyes. She squashed the ridiculous hope down again before it got her further into trouble than she already was. Waving his staff, he answered her question and arranged their trip in five words.

"Wind! Take us to Burgess!"

In less than a second, they were up and away over the clouds, rocketing towards New England with all the speed of a shooting star, leaving not only Vancouver far behind, but also a young boy who'd watched their entire exchange, transfixed, from his parents' apartment. He gaped in sheer awe as the wind carried them away into the night sky, before climbing back into bed, beaming from ear to ear. For now, he would keep it secret, that he'd shared a special moment with Jack Frost and the Tooth Fairy when they'd spun lazily outside his very bedroom window. He was very aware that it wasn't a dream.

But that didn't mean that next year he wouldn't tell on them in his letter to Santa Claus. That is, if he remembered.

* * *

"This is ridiculous."

"Shh, Jack, I can't hear!"

"So what? It's dumb. I'm wearing silver pants, for crying out loud. _Silver pants! _And elf shoes. And I do _not _make deals with that stupid groundhog."

Jaime shot a glare at his friend, to which Jack merely stuck out his tongue. Tooth couldn't repress a chuckle. The two hadn't stopped fighting since Jaime started playing his chosen movie, one which he'd been only too excited to show Jack ever since he'd gotten it for Christmas. Apparently, it was a collection of old holiday specials that had aired on television a few decades ago. Christmas Classics, she thought they were called. The case was thick and contained six disks, each labeled with such titles as Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Reindeer, and other stories. Each looked innocuous enough, and even Tooth had to admit—for her first personal initiation into the world of television and movies, a story about everyone's favorite Guardian of Fun would have been her first choice, too.

Jaime himself was snuggled quite comfortably between the two Guardians as they all three perched at the foot of his bed, watching his small television from the dresser. They craned their necks to hear, the volume turned low so as not to wake the Bennett parents, and Tooth touched the boy's shoulder.

"Sorry for waking you," she whispered. "If you need to go back to sleep, you can tell us to leave. We won't mind."

"Excuse me, _I'd _mind," Jack hissed in the darkness, helping himself to some of the chips Jaime had snuck from the kitchen upon the arrival of his two Immortal friends. "I'm learning a lot about myself here. Did you know that my boss is a huge old guy named Father Winter, and a guy named Snip cuts my snowflakes for me, and an elf named Holly sorts the Christmas snowflakes from the regular snowflakes and locks them up in a cute little safe for when the Christmas snow is due?" He gagged.

"You can go wait outside, if you want," Tooth smirked, and took the opportunity to tuck Jaime's blanket more snugly about his shoulders. The boy mumbled his thanks through a mouthful of chips. "No one's forcing you to watch."

Jack growled, crossed his arms and leaned against the pillows propped up on the headboard. He plucked Jaime's alarm clock from his nightstand and fiddled with it absently. "One more dorky snow gypsy, and I just might."

"Shh! Watch, Jack. This is where it gets good." Jaime was enrapt, watching the screen as a little blond puppet emerged from her shabby home and declared that she would love no one but Jack Frost, much to onscreen Jack's delight. Jaime erupted into a peal of laughter that, if a little louder, would have undoubtedly woken his parents down the hall. He jabbed a finger in his friend's direction, chuckling in a sing-song voice, "Ooh, Jack's got a cru-ush! You _liiiiiiiiike _her?"

If Tooth had expected this new revelation of a love interest to only increase Jack's distaste for the film, she would have been sorely mistaken. Instead, a wide smile grew across her fellow Guardian's face, and, with a long-suffering sigh, he leaned back into the pillows, his hands folded behind his head.

"Kiddo, _she _likes _me_. There's a big difference," he corrected smugly, casually making a show of examining his fingernails.

Jaime laughed into a handful of chips, even as onscreen Jack swooped in at the last second to save the girl's life from plunging over a waterfall. "Right."

"No, really. You'd be surprised how many girls have given over to my…" Behind Jaime's back, Jack caught Tooth's eye and teasingly wiggled his eyebrows over a lopsided smile. "…particular brand of magic."

She quieted the butterflies and the blush with a carefree chuckle and a shake of her head, but inside she was trembling. _Magic indeed. _She distracted herself with another handful of chips.

After another scene during which Jaime, who'd drunk one too many sodas during the opening musical number, excused himself for a hurried trip to the bathroom, Tooth and Jack watched impassively and absently as onscreen Jack begged Father Winter to turn him human for the chance to win the heart of the little blonde girl from the village.

Electricity vibrated palpably in the air, and in the stillness, Tooth was almost certain he could hear her heartbeat even from where he sat across the comforter. As such, she made it a point to constantly nibble a chip, hoping the crunching noise would lessen the thick atmosphere that had settled between them.

It was Jack that broke the silence, his eyes never leaving the screen. "I wouldn't do it."

Tooth froze mid-crunch, turned, and looked at him. "Become human? I don't think we can."

"Even if we could," he whispered quietly, his eyes falling from the screen to his fingers which knotted in and out of complicated patterns. Like snowflakes. "I wouldn't do it."

Part of her begged to ask him for clarification. For reasons why he wouldn't go back to a human life, a _normal _life. A life where he could have friends who wouldn't grow old and disappear before his very eyes, a life where he could have a family if he wanted to, a home. There were plenty of reasons to be a Guardian. The power alone was enough. Most people would have killed for immortal life by itself. But for Jack, just as for Bunnymund, North, Sandman, and herself, there was no one left in the world for them to return to. Their friends and family had long since passed from this life into the next. The world they had once known as humans, for those of the Guardians who had ever _been _human, had slipped into obscurity, fading from life and occasionally from history. Theirs was a time that had been forgotten. And all they had left was each other.

Maybe _that _was the reason Jack Frost wouldn't take humanity back. Because he'd found a home with the Guardians.

But Tooth was too afraid to ask, and so she let Jack keep the answers for himself, to be revealed in his own good time. She wordlessly passed him the bowl of chips, which he, with a slight smile that set a whole new batch of butterflies whizzing about her insides, gratefully accepted.

"Oh, look," she murmured absently, referring to the happenings onscreen. "Father Winter granted your wish."

Puppet Jack fell through the sky, his clothes transforming into more traditional garb of the movie's time period, as the narrator continued. Barely, over real-life Jack's grumble of "dorky hat" through a mouthful of chips, Tooth made out onscreen Jack's delighted exclamation in reference to experiencing human sensations that he'd never felt before.

"_Ooh! A heartbeat!" _

Tooth went rigid as a post, the only thought flitting through her mind a mixture of the word 'heartbeat' and an image of Jack floating cold, alone, and dreadfully still beneath a pond frozen over with ice. He'd told them, of course. Not long after Pitch's defeat, during an evening of no particular significance when they'd all seated themselves around North's grand fireplace, making small talk, he'd spilled it to them. She didn't know why. Each of the Guardians knew the others' backstories, you didn't work together for as long as they had, and not know, and as to why Jack had so suddenly felt like sharing, she might never know. She hadn't asked. She'd listened politely, quietly, and cried openly when he'd finished. It was heart-breaking, how he'd become Jack Frost. Heart-breaking enough to match anyone's in the group.

_A heartbeat. _

Jackson Overland had died that day on the ice over 300 years ago. But Jack Frost had been born. Jack Frost was very much awake and alive, lying next to her atop Jaime's new rocket ship comforter, very real and tangible and beautifully _alive. _But did that mean…

She didn't give herself time to think it through because she knew that if she did, she'd find some reason to stop. With a determinedness that surprised even her, she rose to her knees, turned, and crouched over Jack Frost's relaxed form with all the grace of a stalking tiger.

Jack froze, crushing an unlucky chip in his fist, and his eyes widened. Comically wide. So wide, that for a moment he looked exactly like that puppet onscreen. "T-Tooth, what are you…?"

She wouldn't give him time to speak because just the sound of his voice would remind her who she was, who _he _was, and the list of reasons that she could have spent days concocting of why this was an extremely bad idea. A _very _bad idea. A terrifically, awfully, horrible idea.

And yet, she did it anyway.

Brushing the crumbs deftly from the front of his hoodie, the Tooth Fairy tucked herself as comfortably as possible beneath his shoulder, placed a delicate hand across his middle, and rested her head on his chest. It took a few moments. His breathing was low and deep, and it was difficult at first to get past the strikingly beautiful noise of his lungs filling with air, and deflating again, his ribs expanding and lowering like the hull of a ship. _Alive. _

But then, there it was. As sudden and sparkling as stumbling across the most beautiful molar in an Amazonian rainforest.

_Lub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub. _

Soft, gentle, but undeniably _there. _There. And there. And there again. One of the loveliest sounds she had ever heard.

_A heartbeat. _

"Just checking," she smiled sheepishly, savoring the noise and the breathing and the smell of Jack like peppermint and pine trees, and logging them guiltily away for future study. Her face was a tumultuous mixture of temperatures—the cheek that touched Jack's hoodie was freezing, and the other was blazing hot. Cursing her own boldness, she shifted, preparing to return to the safety of her side of the bed. "That movie is kinda silly…"

But, suddenly, she found her movement restricted. As if with a mind of its own, Jack's arm had hesitatingly but tenderly found its way around her feathered shoulders. She froze, temporarily forgetting how to swallow, and silently thanked her lucky stars for this paralysis as such a noise would definitely have been audible in the stillness of the room. Even the movie onscreen had reached a lull, and the volume was so low that she could hear their breathing automatically synchronizing. _Where was Jaime…? _Still on autopilot, she shifted a little more under his arm, attempting to free herself, half-convinced that she was dreaming—

"W-Wait, Tooth, don't…don't…"

It seemed his mouth had failed him too, and knowing she wasn't alone in this shot her heart with a cannon through the ceiling. _No. No. No, please, no. Don't do this to me, Jack, not now. You can't do this to me now. _

_Please, don't stop._

Without another sound except a rustling of fabric against fabric and sped-up breathing—hers or his? She was afraid to know either way—Jack's other hand covered the one Tooth draped across his stomach. The hand was gentle, scared, and trembling, shaking almost as badly as her own, and _oh gods, she couldn't move she couldn't breathe she couldn't do anything except lay there in Jack Frost's arms in Jack Frost's armsinJackFrost'sarms and not mind the cold in the slightest. _

She kept her eyes glued to the television, feigning interest, even though she couldn't have told you what the last five minutes of the movie had even been about. Every thought was sent abuzz with Jack's hands on hers, and the feeling of his body beneath her ear, and the noise of his heartbeat drowned out everything else until it was the only noise in the world, the only noise in the universe, the only noise that mattered so beautifully wonderfully mattered…!

And she couldn't help but notice the way its steady beat faltered delightfully, madly, when she instinctively flipped the hand on his stomach so her palm faced upward and trailed the tips of her fingers along the pulse point at his wrist.

Faster.

Faster.

_Faster…_

"Hey, guys, look, I got some more chips—"

Confused was perhaps the most appropriate word to describe Jaime Bennett's expression when he entered the room, bearing a fresh bag of snacks, to the sound of a violent kerfuffle and finding the Tooth Fairy perched on his small dresser examining the lampshade like she'd never seen one before, and Jack Frost at the far corner of his room, seated quite casually on the window ledge. Jaime frowned. Their faces were flushed, and their poses were forced. Well, he supposed the heater was on rather high, especially for a winter spirit like Jack.

"It's kind of stuffy in here. Do you guys want me to open the windo—"

The answer was instant, loud, and unanimous. "YES!"

_A/N: Jaime's a cutie pie. Which makes it okay for him to interrupt my FrostBite fluff moment. XD Reviews make my day! _


	4. Chapter 4: Rousing The Monster

_A/N: 'Ello, mates. Been a long time. January 15th, I believe. Last update, wasn't it? I need to finish this before it kills me. I'm so very sorry for the long wait._

**Chapter Four: Rousing The Monster**

_Suddenly, swooping low,  
On an ocean deep,  
Rousing up a mighty monster  
From his sleep._

_- "Walking in the Air" Howard Blake_

Never before had the Tooth Fairy thought of the night as empty.

She was friends with the night. She lived and breathed the night. She thrived and danced in the day, but it was during the night when she was alive, when she worked, when her duty to bring joy and happiness to children across the globe was fulfilled.

But this night had suddenly turned very empty. And Tooth knew why.

When the movie finished (rather tragically, she couldn't help but think) and they'd bid their goodbyes to Jaime, they'd begun their flight back to the Pole in silence. The North Wind was calm, its jealousy satisfied, and it didn't blow Jack away from his fairy companion as though to keep them from even speaking. Instead, it coasted him along at a friendly pace, one that Tooth on her wings was quite able to keep up with.

It was as though the Wind knew that whatever moment…instant…_thing _had happened between Jack Frost and the Tooth Fairy had been well and truly interrupted by the Little One called Jaime, and now it saw no reason to fling the feathered girl far and wide through the atmosphere in an envious tirade. The atmosphere between the two Guardians was sufficiently awkward, and this pleased it to no end.

Jack hadn't said a word to Tooth since climbing up on the Bennett's roof and calling the Wind to take them back to the Pole, and his silence weighed the heaviest on her heart.

Not their almost-moment in Jaime's room.

Not the way he held her hand through the streets of Vancouver, or hovering in front of their cloud-sculptures not two hours ago.

Not the way he'd laughed his long, perfect laugh as they chased each other through a December sky.

Jack Frost was as wild and restless as a winter storm, and just about as quiet. And so his silence was what created the most anxiety in Tooth's quivering heart.

She knew why he was avoiding eye contact, flying ahead with a grip on his staff like a vice, with only a cursory backward glance to see if she was following. And she knew why when they accidentally met each other's gaze, he jerked away, the tips of his ears a frosty blue. She had made him irrevocably uncomfortable when she'd placed her head on his chest like a pillow, in such an undeniably intimate position that she couldn't have taken it back if she wanted to. Somehow, somewhere, _quite by accident _she'd tried unsuccessfully to reassure herself, the two of them had crossed a line in their friendship, and now there was no going back.

At the thought of doing their relationship some irreparable damage by her actions, Tooth's spirits sank like a stone. She was willing to admit that her feelings for Jack Frost went beyond the boundaries of casual. She had long nursed a crush on him and his splendidly white teeth, a crush which had developed slowly and surely into something more as they spent months together as Guardians. Something that made her feel happy, carefree, brimming over with sunlight and jungle flowers.

But now Jack knew it, too. And they were feelings that he didn't return.

Tooth decided then and there that being 'just friends' with Jack Frost was much better than this particularly ungraceful winged elephant that had settled between them. So what if he never cared for her the way she cared for him? Being around him, seeing his unbridled smile and carefree happiness, was more than enough for her. She could not lose that. She _would _not lose that.

The newfound resolution left a stale taste in her mouth and a heavy weight in her chest, but there was no helping it. She was sure she would get over him, in time. She had been perfectly fine before he had rocketed into her blissful, work-filled life, and by golly, she would be fine again. Besides, he was part of the team. There'd be no escaping each other if they had to work together, and she knew for a fact that Bunnymund, North, Sandy, and especially the Man in the Moon would not tolerate tension among the Guardians' ranks. And so she would let go of these teenage emotions she had outgrown centuries ago, and she would do it tonight.

Having made her decision, Tooth was suddenly at a loss. Finally emerging from her thoughts, she watched pensively as Jack's blue hoodie rippled in the wind. It seemed that he'd firmly resolved to ignore her presence for the rest of the evening. The fairy queen bit her lip. How would she be able to show him that they were okay? That nothing would change? That it was just some silly little crush, and she could put that aside for the sake of their friendship?

There had to be some way to snap him out of it!

As the pair flew, Tooth trailed a little behind Jack, the tips of her pale pink wings only slightly ruffled by the North Wind that propelled him forward. Glancing around, she took stock of where they were and what was available.

Honestly, not much of anything. They zoomed over the same blanket of chocolate-colored clouds as before, with the Moon shining (if a little bit dimmer) down on them with the stars keeping him company. All around her was nothing but crisp, frosty air that collected in wisps from her mouth when she exhaled and was lost to her wingbeats moments after.

Vaguely, she imagined that a snowball to the back of his white head would get his attention surer than anything else she could think of. Unfortunately, there weren't any snowballs to be had…

However, there was that blanket of clouds below…and it was those that gave her an idea.

Disguising her mischievous smirk, Tooth paused mid-flight, stopping short and hovering where she flew. Sensing her stop, Jack Frost halted as well, turning slowly and giving her a quizzical eye.

"What's up, Tooth?" he asked quietly. The North Wind tugged at his hoodie and hair. "We're almost at the Pole. Everything okay?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she gave him only the most mischievous smirk she could muster and then she folded her wings, tilted forward, and shot down below the cloudline, leaving nothing above to indicate that she'd even been there. Nothing except Jack Frost's startled yelp hanging in the air like a silver Christmas ornament.

Diving through the clouds soaked her feathers to the skin, and she could feel miniscule ice crystals beading on her wings, but she did not stop. She dove and dove, speeding at a vertical drop towards ground, while air bit at her cheeks and nose and made her eyes water. She was flying so quickly that it was becoming increasingly difficult to breathe. A few seconds more, and she'd have to slow down just to keep from fainting.

But she couldn't slow down. Not just yet. He was the Guardian of Fun, curious and mischievous and driven by challenge. There wasn't even the slightest chance he wouldn't follow her. It was in his nature.

And fortunately for the sake of her health, she pierced the cloudline and watched with a bordering-insane smirk as the surface rushed up to greet her. The trip from Burgess to the North Pole had taken them over the coast of Newfoundland and Canada, and by now they were so far out to sea that the city lights had disappeared from view, leaving nothing but an expanse of infinite ocean made glistening silver by the Moon's gentle light.

Only when the waves were in view did the fairy queen turn to look behind her, the speeding air buffeting the crest of feathers on her head almost painfully. But what she saw made her smile.

Jack Frost, staff in hand and body angled like a deep blue torpedo, was hot on her trail, watching her with a mix of shock and curiosity in his crystal gaze. Obviously, he'd thought the worst when she'd suddenly dropped from the sky. That she'd fainted, passed out, fallen. And now, seeing that she was actively leading him on a chase, he was confused.

All she could do was smile. _Catch me if you can, Frost. _

She was the fastest flier on the team. She had been the first to arrive at the Tooth Palace a little over nine months ago, making it from the North Pole to Southeast Asia in record time, even beating North and his snowglobes, notwithstanding her ten minute headstart. No one, not even Bunny, could beat Tooth in a race. He'd tried on several occasions.

So there was no chance Jack would catch her. That is, not until she wanted him to.

Tucking her arms into her sides and straightening her legs, Tooth shot forward towards the churning ocean. How close would she get this time? In her younger days, she'd been quite the daredevil, challenging the harpy eagles and the jungle parrots to many a game of chicken with a sheer cliff face near her home.

Just a little closer…

Just a little closer!

She waited a tad longer after Jack gave a desperate cry of, "_Tooth, pull up!" _before finally spreading her wings and swooping low, just short of careening into the ocean. Laughing, despite the slight twinge in her shoulder blades at the maneuver, Tooth felt her heart soar. This was what flying was all about. Elation. Weightlessness.

She slowed enough over the water to allow Jack to catch up. His grip on his staff made his pale knuckles shine even whiter, and his usually laughing blue eyes blazed with an anger that looked out of place on his happy-go-lucky face.

"_Tooth, what the heck were you thinking?!" _he thundered, his voice hoarse and deep. "_You could have got yourself killed! What's the matter with you?!" _

On any other night, she would have shied away from his anger like a skittish animal, hurried to placate him, been ashamed of her behavior.

But tonight was not that night. Only now was her heartbeat catching up with the rest of her body, having been lost somewhere above the cloudline during the freefall, and she could feel its pulse surging pure energy through her veins. She was invincible. She was the Queen of the Sky. And all trepidation about their relationship from a few precious minutes ago had vanished from her thoughts.

"Oh, Jack," she cooed, grinning, "You _do _care."

She could have sworn the tips of his ears turned the same color as his hoodie. But before she could allow her traitorous mind to dwell more on this than was strictly healthy, she shot away over the waves, laughing, wordlessly challenging him to keep up if he could.

They had danced together through his clouds in the open air. Let them dance now over the black waves of a rolling, gentle sea.

Relief flooded her limbs when his laugh joined hers, and she felt him behind her, tailing her closely. Their reflections stared up at them from the bottomless water, stars winking behind them in the night, and for the briefest of moments, she wasn't quite sure if reality was above them or below. Somehow, by some magic spell, she and Jack had switched positions with their mirror selves, and now they were locked in this dance for all eternity, as long as the real Tooth and Jack on the other side were alive and breathing.

She plunged a hand into the water just to reassure herself that she was not a reflection, but when there came a startled gasp behind her, she turned. Jack had swerved, barely managing to dodge the plume of saltwater ejected from her palm.

His playful glare only resulted in her mischievous smile. _What a great idea…_

Without hesitation, Tooth stabbed both hands into the black ocean water below and was rewarded with a satisfying splash and a cry of, "_HEY!" _from behind. Cackling madly, she turned to see a now dripping Jack Frost attempting to wipe most of the sea from his vision, all while maintaining one of those killer smiles on his lips.

"Oh, that's it," he said. "It's on now."

What followed was probably one of the grandest splash fights in the history of life on Earth. Or at least, in the history of the Guardians. Sheer crystal spikes of water shot into the sky, glowing white in the starlight, as first Jack and then Tooth took the lead in their chase across the ocean.

The Moon glowed kindly and lovingly on the two immortals, easily within earshot of their laughter and teasing as they played, and for the first time in a long time, he remembered that not so long ago, they themselves had been just as young and innocent as the children they had sworn to protect. Long before Pitch. Long before Nightmares. Long before that icy pond in New England and a gnarled wooden staff, and long before the Maharaja and an iron cage. Why should they not play as they might have hundreds of years ago? In another life? If they had been childhood friends and not soldiers battling for the freedom and safety of every child on Earth?

But the Moon's musings went unheard by the Tooth Fairy and Jack Frost who, both thoroughly soaked, shivering, and grinning like a pair of goblins in the moonlight, decided to call a truce in their splash fight to buzz a long, white cruise liner humming through the ocean just to their left.

Golden lights struck out across the black water like ribbons rippling across the waves, and adults dressed in long evening gowns chatted elegantly behind the glass windows. Safe from the wintery cold.

Most of the people on board would not see them. They were too old, too wizened, too wrapped up in their grown-up discussions and lives to remember young hearts and emotions. So Jack felt no shame in blasting them with a sudden cold breeze that ripped women's skirts from their legs and forced black ties into men's faces. Drinks spilled and skin shivered, and those who had braved the frosty December air near the ship's railing hurried back into the safety of the heated ballroom.

All except one little boy, who stared, open-mouthed, dressed in a miniscule black tie and vest, at the beautiful green girl with wings and her friend, the white-skinned, blue-eyed boy, hovering just off the starboard bow with laughter like starlight.

"Oh, Jack." Tooth was the first to notice him, having had to dodge the glances of believers for much longer than Jack. She could easily tell when she was being watched. "We have company."

She gestured to the little tuxedoed boy near the railing. Jack followed her gaze, caught sight of him, and a wide smile broke out across his features, wrinkling the corners of his eyes in a way that vaguely reminded her of North. It made her smile just to look at it.

And then, without a second's thought, he looked her in the eyes, caught her stare and held it fast, and gave her a look that very clearly said, _You might not be okay with this, but I'm going to do it anyway, so just brace yourself. _And then he took her hand.

_There he goes with the hand-taking again and making me all flustered and just when I decided I'd had enough of this childish nonsense, oh! the insufferable—_

He took her hand, wrapping her fingers firmly in his, and then, with a wave of his crooked staff, pushed them forward with a gentle breeze.

As they approached, the boy seemed caught between an urge to flee and knees that kept him locked securely in place. Tooth could only imagine what he was seeing. Surely it wasn't every day that the Tooth Fairy and Jack Frost appeared in front of you, wind catching hold of her feathers and his hoodie so that they almost glowed like ghosts, holding hands no less, looking for all the world like a cou…

_No. __**No. **__Don't even think like that. _

"Fun party?" Jack asked, smiling.

The boy's mouth moved in useless gasps. He clutched hold of what looked like a sippy cup of apple juice in front of his miniature tux, and his eyes were so big and brown that Tooth couldn't look away. A sudden spike of undeniable love forced its way from her heart into a smile so broad that she worried her cheeks might fall off.

"_Jokul Frosti,_" the child whispered in awe. "_I angel_."

Jack frowned, glancing at Tooth. "What?"

"_Jack Frost,_" she translated smoothly, her eyes never leaving the precious boy at the railing. "_And an angel." _

She'd forgotten that Jack hadn't yet become privy to her abilities with languages. She smiled at his confused expression, and explained, "I speak Russian."

"Ah."

"_I'm no angel, young one," _she whispered fluently, returning her attention to the boy. _"I'm the Tooth Fairy." _

Now it was the boy's turn to look confused. He blinked up at her, down at his sippy cup, and back again. _"But…but I thought it was a mouse that came and collected lost teeth." _

"_In Russia, it is. He is a magic mouse who works for me." _

"_Oh." _Shyly, the boy scuffed his toe into the hardwood floor, clasping his tiny hands behind his back, before glancing up at her with red cheeks and a quiet, "_Well…next time I lose a tooth, can you come instead?" _

"_Why?" _

"_You're very pretty." _

Never had a child succeeded in making her blush before, but she supposed there was a first time for everything, after all. Laughing, she nodded her head. _"I'll see what I can do, young one." _

A woman's voice called from inside, and the boy answered. Apparently, his mother was searching for him. Although Tooth hated to see him go, she was glad he was at least watched over. Loving parents had always made the Guardians' jobs so much easier.

"_Dasvedanya, Jokul Frosti i angel,_" he said shyly, shuffling a quick, spontaneous bow before disappearing behind glass into the crowd of partygoers. Tooth watched him until his little black suit had vanished completely into the sea of dresses and waistcoats.

Only then was she aware that her fingers were still clasped tightly in Jack's, with no indication that he would let go anytime soon. The thought made her heart flutter unsteadily in her chest, and she forced herself to still it before it got her into trouble. Again.

"Why is it that, when I'm with you, I feel like I'm escorting a princess?" he asked, the smile evident in his voice.

Matching his smile, she met his eyes, and took in the blueness, the crystal, the snowfall in his gaze. "A queen, actually, if you want to be technical. Queen of the Tooth Fairy Armies, ruler of Punjam Hy Loo and all its finery. Rider of flying elephants."

"Kind of useless since you already have wings."

She answered that with a wink. Removing her hand from his, she took off once more across the sea, and he was quick to follow. They played water tag until the only thing distinguishing the skies from the sea were the waves and the way the stars rippled across one side, but other than that they might have been floating in empty space. Darkness. Pinpricks of light piercing through the black as the only reassurance that Heaven was a real place after all.

Tooth watched the night sky from its reflection below, smiling demurely, until she noticed something was amiss. Just below the surface of the black water, there was a rippling. Not from waves or surf. A rippling of movement. A rippling of a massive body.

She gave only one yelp before the sound of rushing seawater drowned it out. Breaking free of the ocean's surface like a restricting blanket rose an enormous, barnacle-encrusted head, the remainders of a long-lost song just fading on its lips. Tooth's eyes were so wide, she felt they might roll right out of her head.

A whale. A huge, beautiful, black whale.

It gave her only a cursory glance where she hovered, blinking its incredibly large brown eye at her once before its lower lid slid upwards, creasing at the sides in a way that reminded Tooth of Jack, of North. Of a smile.

Tooth couldn't move except to give it the smallest of waves. She was frozen where she hovered.

Humans had long forgotten, but whales were the wisest and gentlest of creatures on planet Earth, able to communicate with the purest form known to man: song.

Jack was beside her now, staring back into the eye of the whale, and whispering in a quiet gasp the only words that fit the situation, the first words she had ever heard him speak that day at the Pole so long ago.

"Wow. You gotta be kidding me."

The whale was alone, swimming across the ocean in a lazy migratory pattern that they had long ago learned was more fun than the destination, and it was glad for the company. With a single gasp of air that shot a geyser of steam from its forehead, the whale sank beneath the waves and splashed the pair of Guardians with a stream of cold water, drenching them from head to toe when they had just managed to get relatively dry.

Sputtering, Jack combed the bangs from his eyes, laughing. "It wants to play!"

Tooth grinned, buzzing her wings until they were dry. "Then let's play."

And for the next ten minutes, they raced a whale across the ocean. He was a formidable opponent. Just because whales are large does not mean they aren't fast. He shot through the water like a torpedo, raising a plume of crystal sea water in his wake so that it looked like a glass dorsal fin, and Tooth and Jack could only just keep up.

Once, Tooth watched as Jack reached out, hesitantly, as though scared to do some irreparable damage, and placed a hand on the thin sliver of smooth skin that speared above the surface of the waves. Once there, he held it, gasping, laughing, and gazing at the white fingers against the black skin through the eyes of a newborn child.

"It feels like ice," he whispered in awe, so low that Tooth barely heard him over the roaring waves. "Warm ice."

Smooth, slick, and warm like rubber in a rainstorm. She could imagine warm ice.

There came from the water a sound like rolling thunder, followed by a high keening that rippled the water. _Song_. The whale was singing to them, a baritone, a mezzo, and a soprano all at once, rising and falling across the notes like an ocean wave. The beat was slow like a gentle swell, and the rhythm was a mystery, known only to others of its kind. To any person's ears, the sound was beautiful, if a little loud and melancholy.

Jack's face lit up with an idea. Sweeping close to the water, he opened his mouth and let out a moan.

Tooth first thought that Jack was suffering from indigestion, especially when the moan's pitch ascended to the point that his voice cracked, but when he lowered the pitch again, Tooth realized that he was trying to talk to the whale.

The whale, after a moment, fixed Jack with a look that one might give a toddler trying to read the _Bhagavad Gita_ in its original language: one of a smile that was a mix of pity and appreciation of what was attempting to be accomplished.

Tooth might have laughed, seeing as Jack was completely oblivious and continued his moaning, but the whale began to speak again in a voice Tooth knew only she could understand. She was gifted in all forms of animal speech, especially jungle animals, but she was ashamed to admit that her Whale was somewhat rusty from disuse. She hadn't spoken Whale in quite some time.

But it was not difficult to decode the enormous creature's message, rising and falling over the surface of the waves like wandering tendrils of song.

"_The lonely iceberg at the ends of the earth is purposeless and alone until it meshes with the rest of the ocean in the warm, sweet waters of a tropical sea." _

Tooth blinked. She had obviously missed the whale's point.

It seemed to understand this, and clarified: "_The Heart of Ice yearns to melt._"

When the whale flicked an eye at Jack as a means of gesture, Tooth felt a blush bloom over her cheeks. The whale seemed satisfied, but when Jack let out a particularly off-key moan, it could only gawk and blink a few times in what seemed to be exasperation. "_And tell the boy that he would do well to _never_ repeat that phrase in polite society._"

The whale remained for only a few moments after before it gave a cheerful goodbye, and began to sink beneath the waves for the remainder of its voyage.

Jack straightened his hoodie with a smirk. "I think I made a good impression."

Tooth's impulse to facepalm was overridden by the sheer magnitude of what it was they had done. They had talked to a whale! It was then that the reality of what they had just done began to take hold, and Tooth and Jack, overwhelmed with the experience of flying over the ocean, swimming with whales in an endless sky where they couldn't see the hint of a horizon, laughed.

Their laughter rang heavenward, and the Moon glowed as bright as the Sun, punching crystal through the spire of seawater the whale raised in salute with the tiniest flick of its tail. It was under this crystal spire that the Tooth Fairy and Jack Frost came together for the second time that evening, brimming with joy and happiness and sheer indescribable wonder that usually brings two people together in this way.

Lost, without adequate words to describe what filled their hearts, they wrapped their arms around each other, Tooth's around Jack's neck, and Jack's around Tooth's waist, and they reveled in the closeness and the warmth as water exploded around them.

Music filled Tooth's ears, and she closed her eyes, humming along with it, feeling nothing but the crisp December air, the starlight on her skin, and Jack Frost's arms encircling her in softness and his scent like a fresh January snow in a pine forest. _This _was flying. _This _was weightless.

_This _was…the complete opposite of what she'd just decided not more than a half-hour ago!

Only when she had opened her eyes and gently pushed at his chest did her stunned brain recognize the dazed expression on his face. His eyes were half-lidded, his cheeks and the tips of his ears had turned that adorable blue color again, and his gaze was focused on somewhere a few inches south of her eyes.

_He was going to…! _

Tooth's heart stopped beating. She was almost knocked clean out of the air.

But self-preservation is a powerful motivator, and Tooth had perfected it over many a thousand years of practice.

Gently, she cleared her throat, placed her hands on his chest, and extricated herself from his arms.

"I…I think we'd better go," she smiled. She was certain her face was glowing a brilliant red, and the Moon was shining bright enough that she suspected he could see it too.

Before she had a chance to second-guess herself, to seize the front of his hoodie and finish whatever action he'd intended, she turned, shook her wings, and shot upwards towards the safety of the clouds. They'd be back at the North Pole soon. They'd be back in the safety of the other Guardians' watchful eyes. Maybe then they could pretend that this entire, beautiful, spectacular, magical night hadn't happened, and they could go back to being just friends.

_Just friends. _

So, when Tooth buzzed away as fast as a streak of green light, she missed Jack Frost's face blossom into a blissful smile. He'd seen her blush in the moonlight. He'd felt her heart bounce against his chest, almost as fast as his.

And, contrary to what the Tooth Fairy fervently believed, Jack Frost had ceased thinking about her as _just a friend _from the moment she'd spun him around in a celebratory hug after the Battle of Belief all those months ago.

_A/N: One more chapter to go..._


End file.
